Explores contemporary art that challenges deadly desires for mastery
and dominion.
Amid times of emboldened cruelty and perpetual war, Rosalyn Deutsche
links contemporary art to three practices that counter the prevailing
destructiveness: psychoanalytic feminism, radical democracy, and war
resistance. Deutsche considers how art joins these radical practices to
challenge desires for mastery and dominion, which are encapsulated in
the Eurocentric conception of the human that goes under the name "Man"
and is driven by deadly inclinations that Deutsche calls masculinist.
The masculinist subject--as an individual or a group--universalizes
itself, claims to speak on behalf of humanity, and meets differences
with conquest.
Analyzing artworks by Christopher D'Arcangelo, Robert Filliou, Hans
Haacke, Mary Kelly, Silvia Kolbowski, Barbara Kruger, Louise Lawler,
Martha Rosler, James Welling, and Krzysztof Wodiczko, Deutsche
illuminates the diverse ways in which they expose, question, and trouble
the visual fantasies that express masculinist desire. Undermining the
mastering subject, these artworks invite viewers to question the
positions they assume in relation to others. Together, the essays in
Not-Forgetting, written between 1999 and 2020, argue that this art
offers a unique contribution to building a less cruel and violent
society.
